No Grown-Ups Allowed!

During class we chatted about how parents have no place in education, or at least in schooling.  It was really enlightening to hear a Deweyan perspective on this, which started to reframe how I think about parent involvement in schooling, particularly in the later grades when children are more developed.

With that being said, in consideration of Vygotsky's claim that the difference "between the behaviour of child and ape may be defined during the process of teaching." (6) I think it is worth taking some stock in the importance of parental involvement during the early stages of child development.  Parent involvement is a mediating factor during early childhood.

Vygotsky notes that "the capacity of human thought, but without words, is given only by word."  I'm curious to know what language development would look like in early childhood sans grown ups.  During this formative phase of human development, parents are either exposing children to language, ultimately catalyzing children's transition from what Vygotsky calls the pre-speech phase, into the phase of development that creates the "base for intellect" and other "specifically human forms of behaviour," or not.  They are either exposing children to the social emotional competencies that will lead them to positive social and academic experiences later in childhood and life, or not.  Parents are either exposing children to books/ narrative and print (and the fact that it is a system of symbols that carries meaning), or not.  And lastly, they are either exposing children to the early conceptions that learning and school can be positive things, OR NOT.

Research shows that early gaps in language and literacy grow over time ( Michenbaum & Beimiller 1998).  And that young children living in less language rich home environments are often well behind their peers.

I think the argument to keep parents out of education makes sense.   Parents with strong inclinations to live vicariously through their children or to standardize their educational experiences come to mind.  But the argument to keep parents out of education during early childhood, is tenuous at best.

I think Vygostky would to some extent agree.  I am reminded of his claim that culture is an essential (yet dangerous) component of child development.

For if children are not shepherded toward the cultural practice of questioning the very institutions into which they matriculate (and engaging with them democratically), how could change ever come about as they matriculate out and in some instances begin to manage those same institutions? And if children aren't exposed to language by caregivers, which results in "higher functions of perception, memory, movement, and so on," how could they begin to engage with and bring about the sort of changes in schooling that Shantanu pointed out as being so clearly warranted?



P.S. When I say 'parent' in this post, I'm referring to any caregiver who is responsible for the wellbeing, growth, and development of a young child.  Parents need not be biological.